There has been a recent interest in both pile fabrics generally and in a pile fabric utilizing the characteristics of natural woolen sliver in particular. There are many methods available to produce pile fabrics but these are generally expensive and will not operate reliably with a sliver of corded wool.
The prior art methods known to the applicants which involve the utilization of natural woolen sliver include the steps of manually winding woolen sliver about a plurality of formers, applying adhesive to the wound sliver and adhering the sliver to a backing sheet before cutting it free from the formers. However, these known methods involve disadvantages.
Specifically, with these known methods difficulties are experienced in terms of monitoring the amount of adhesive required to achieve the bonding between the sliver and the backing sheet. An excess of adhesive used has the disadvantages of increasing both the expense of the process and the handle of the finished product whereas the use of insufficient adhesive results in a poor bonding. Further disadvantages of these methods reside in their being labor intensive and time consuming thus again increasing the cost of producing the product.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for manufacturing a pile fabric which will go some distance towards overcoming the aforementioned difficulties or to at least provide the public with a useful choice.